Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - Find Your Perfect Balance For A Healthy Life - With Mona Sharma

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

For full show notes, resources mentioned, and transcripts go to: www.drmindypelz.com/ep111/ To enroll in Dr. Mindy's Fasting membership go to: resetacademy.drmindypelz.com This episode is all about the power of food, healing with ancient principles, and using mindfulness to find balance on your health journey.  Mona Sharma is a dynamic leader and entrepreneur in the health and wellness industry who works with high-profile clients around the world. She also has a reoccurring role on the Facebook series Red Table Talk where they profile her work with Will Smith and the entire Smith family's healing journey. Mona has seen firsthand the power of food and mindfulness to heal, having grown up living on an Ashram. Her approach is rooted in this philosophy, and also inspires her research into the gut microbiome and its impact on our health and happiness. Please see our medical disclaimer. 

There's an idea of a great blueprint, but I think that your perfect diet should be as unique as your thumbprint. Resetters, Dr. Mindy here, and I am on a mission to teach you just how powerful your body was built to be. This podcast is about giving you the power back and helping you believe in yourself again. Let's jump in. On this episode of the Resetter podcast, I bring you Mona Sharma. Now, if you're not familiar with Mona, she is a holistic nutritionist and a huge wellness advocate.

If you've watched Will Smith's YouTube original series, Best Shape of My Life, she was the key nutritionist helping him get into amazing shape. She has been profiled many times on the Red Table Talk show on Facebook where the whole Smith family talks about their healing journey and the work that she has done with them to customize nutrition, to bring their, health to optimal levels. What I really want to dive in with Mona on is her background growing up in an ashram and how that has influenced her approach to health. So this conversation is a really unique one as far as where we go with nutrition because we didn't start off with the ABCs of nutrition. We started off with the philosophy of nutrition, which I think is so important. And we talked about how to create the proper mindset or the perfect mindset for you to be able to succeed with your health.

So some of the things you will hear in this discussion. One, what was it like to grow up in a ashram? What did she learn about respecting food, about the timing of food, about what food means to overall healing, the actual act of eating, not necessarily the quality of the food, but the actual ritual of eating. How can we use the ritual of eating to help our health be at its best? We then went into, if you're trying to get healthy,

is it important that your lifestyle tools are congruent with your values and what you value in life? So we went really deep into the philosophical approach to health and nutrition. And of course, those of you have been following me for a while, hopefully you know that I love the philosophy of health. So with Mona's background growing up in an ashram, I had such a great time talking to her about how we can really look at a health path as being a philosophical one.

We then moved into all different types of nutrition. So we touched on vegan, vegetarian, carnivore, Arieptic, paleo. We talk about all the different styles of nutrition. and how all of them have key highlights and all of them have downsides and how do you pick the right one for you? And then we went on to talk about a passion project of hers, which I'm actually pretty excited about, which is Hicama Juice. And the reason I'm excited about it is because I love food for healing, but also it could be

a key nutrient that's needed for progesterone, my favorite hormone. So Mona Sharma, this was a really full. fun and different conversation than I've had with any other guest, I think you all will find like I did that she has a beautiful heart and a wonderful approach to health that is so needed in today's world. And I'm just really excited to share this interview with you guys. So here you go, Mona Sharma. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. I always like to start my podcast with whatever's burning on my heart. And one of the things that's really burning on my heart, right now is that I believe we are exiting out of a time where we gave all our power away,

our health power away, to doctors. And we're starting or to medication. And we're starting a new paradigm is starting to emerge that I feel like is rooted in more ancient history philosophies and is giving people their power back. I don't believe that paradigm has fully emerged, but I'm seeing the rumblings of people being in discontent over the idea that big pharma and the medical world has all the answers. So I want to start off with talk to us about your story, your upbringing, and how it shaped your philosophy of health, because I don't think a lot of people had that kind of induction into health when they were born.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think you're right. You know, we're living in an era of hyper wellness. There's so much information out there. It's never been more confusing. People don't know what diet to do, what to eat anymore. And even with access to all of this information and doctors and, you know, everything that's being promoted, we're still getting sick.

Obesity is on the rise. Diabetes is on the rise amongst adults and children. Anxiety-related disorders are all on the rise. So I'm with you. Like there's this call to go back to roots, back to these ancient traditions that we know have been practiced for centuries that have positive impact, right? Right. And that really ties into my story.

So, yeah, I grew up living on an ashram. My father would take us to live at an ashram, which is a spiritual center where they focus on food is medicine and mindfulness every day, yoga outside, sitting in community, having connection with nature. And he did this because my mom, I've only known her to suffer from debilitating rheumatoid arthritis. So her whole body's completely deformed, but I would just see the impact of these modalities on their mood, on their health. And of course, we took so much of that home to us. But, you know, as a little kid with your dad tapping you at 5.30 in the morning to go meditate. It's like,

you're like, no. This isn't fun at all. But, you know, the motto in our house was eat it. It's good for you. Drink it. It's good for you. So my mom would try anything and everything. reduce the inflammation to her joints. I love that. Now, flash forward, I guess in my 20s, I had to just go and live life and, you know, not being a doctor or a lawyer in the Indian tradition. I went and I got a job in fashion. How'd that go? It was great until it wasn't. Yeah, stressful, I would imagine. Yeah, look, it's somebody's dream job and it sounds glamorous. I was able to travel the world and do makeup for fashion shows and celebrities and all of these things. And, things, but my health really took a toll. I was stressed. I wasn't living in my alignment and my

purpose. We were eating out a ton and drinking and doing all those things. There was a phase when we were taking laxatives at night to undo the damage, like just really toxic. And my heart palpitations at that time, it just gotten really, really bad. And that led me to having two heart surgeries, two ablations for these debilitating heart palpitations. And I was put on beta blockers as well. The beta blockers, I would say, really contributed to me gaining about 40 pounds. Wow. And it just wasn't myself. And during my second heart surgery, the doctor said, okay, well, we found the node.

If we go ahead with this, there's a chance that you might have to wear a peacemaker for the rest of your life. And in that moment, I just thought, what is happening? This is not my life. I'm not going to wear a pacemaker. And I just thought of my mom and everything that she did undo or reverse the effects of her disease. And I just thought, that's it. I threw in the towel. And then I went back to the ashram that I grew up at, the Shivanundad Ashram.

Where was the ashram? So the one that we grew up at was in Valmarin and the mountains in Montreal, Canada. Oh, okay. And when I was older, I started going to, they have locations around the world. I started going to the one in the Bahamas on Paradise Island, which is Paradise. Yeah. And I became a yoga teacher and a meditation teacher that led me to becoming a holistic nutritionist. And I've never looked back.

And ultimately when I started working with these CEOs and athletes, you know, they would hire me to get the six back to learn how to do a headstand or a handstand or whatever it was. But it would stay with me because I was able to allow them to experience a sense of freedom in their mind and stillness. And sure enough, that was exactly what I was lacking when I was sick, right? Doctors didn't ask me about my stress, my anxiety, my sense of purpose. They could care less if I was eating out or having a few cups of glasses of wine or coffee, right? But there was a lot of inner work that had to be done in order for me to get rid of my heart palpitations, put down the inflammation in my body, learn how to live without anxiety, right? Constant chatter in my mind, a sense of lack of purpose and fulfillment and stuff like that. So it's definitely been a journey, but the foundation really comes from these ancient rituals that I learned at the ashram. Yeah. And I always think that we often have to do something that is completely opposite of our upbringing. Like go into the medical system and get rubbed around there a little bit, bump around there for a moment. And then to realize that what we were taught as children really mattered.

My mom actually, when I grew up in, I had the pleasure of growing up in Malibu. And my mom was a total health nut before that was even popular. And so the first thing that she would do when we would go into the grocery store, we had to read the first four ingredients of every food we wanted. So if you came and said, hey, mom, can I buy this? She would say, read me the first four ingredients. And if sugar was in one of the first four, you weren't allowed to, I wasn't allowed to buy it. And there was.

Brilliant. There was one food I wanted more than any. And that was a fruit roll up. And all the kids at the elementary school would wrap the fruit roll up around their finger and they'd like, lick on it. And I'm like, oh, that looks so good. And it was like the four, like the top four ingredients. Oh, yeah, probably a second.

Yeah, and I would just beg her. But, you know, when I got sick, same kind of time as you in my early 20s, I came back to my roots. And I was so grateful for what she taught me. And even now to this day, like, you know, the foundation I was given to really believe in my own healing power, to really see that food is medicine like you're saying. And to prioritize it and to give it the credit. it deserves, it sticks with me. But most people don't, aren't given that. So when they get sick, there's no formula. There's no way out. The only way out they know is to go to the doctor and do, you know, get on a pill. So where do you think when people are on a healing journey, where do you

think that philosophy fits in? Is it something that they need to have in the beginning? Or is it something you just sort of gather as you go along your path? I think we all have to, acknowledge that our healing really comes into our own hands. Our doctors are great. The doctors that put me on the medication and put me through the surgeries, they were doing their job. They wanted to, they wanted to take away my pain and my suffering. That's what they were trained to do. And that's what they did. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But, you know, I think there's also a sense of fear when we go to our medical community or our doctors, wherever they say, we just say, okay, that's it. I've got to be on this medication now. You know, and we end up leaving our doctor's offices without a sense of hope.

Yeah. We, you know, for me, I really identified with being sick. I was sick. I have a heart condition. I can't do those things anymore until I thought, well, wait a second. It was really my brother who's 10 years older who said like, how's that working for you? Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of us don't have those people within our lives. But I think that it's up to us to really, one, for people like us to preach what we, what we talk, what we speak, what we educate other people in. But really saying to people, okay, if you're not leaving your doctor's office, with a sense of hope, then it's up to you and go and find resources. Do your research for other people who are going through the same symptoms and the things, the modalities that they've used to help them heal. Right. And yeah, these ancient rituals are definitely, they're coming to surface now, but certainly not talked about. Right. Yeah. And I think that we need to stop calling the woo-woo, right? Yeah. Right. It's like, no, it's actually backed by science now, right? We know the power of meditations backed by science. Connection with nature, backed by science.

So we need to start normalizing this. What we used to call woo-woo, we now called neuroscience. Yes. That's literally the way I look at it. You could take any woo-woo concept and go to PubMed and Google and search it. And you'll find some great studies on it. So this, if anybody's thinking that meditation, fasting, herbs, like, you know, yoga, all those things is woo-woo and doesn't have validity on their health, they've missed their neuroscience report.

Absolutely. Because it's all being proven by science now. It is. And I think that, you know, people, what is, you know, really popular, this word inflammation, right? It's such a buzzword. Everyone say, oh, it's inflammation. It's inflammation. Well, where does the inflammation stem from? Right. So we can look at the things that are happening within your life. Is it from your diet? Chances are, yes. Is it from your lifestyle? Is it from your environment? But I would say for me, you know, when I'm doing my consultations with my clients, on the very first call, everyone's like, all right, well, come on, Mona, give me the diet, give me a meal plan, tell me what to eat, just tell me what you're doing, and I'm going to do it.

Usually in the first call, we really don't talk about food that much because a lot of it comes back to you having, you know, belief system, a sense of self-compassion and a sense of self-love. When I was abusing my body with food and, you know, partying and all those things, there wasn't any self-compassion and love. it was, you know, a form of disengaging from reality, right? It was, it's like a numbing. It was a numbing effect. Absolutely. Let me do this now so I can just, I'll think about it later. I'll think about healing later, right? Yeah. And so often, I think especially today, we wait until we have a symptom and illness and imbalance or dis-ease within the body before we take

action. But we now know that everything that we do today in this moment manifests in our body in our minds in the future. So if we can first address, I think, the thoughts, right? The roommate in our minds. I love that book. Oh, and tethered soul. And tethered soul by Michael Singer. Yeah.

Yeah, what are the thoughts saying? Is there a constant chatter within your mind? At the ashram, you know, even with yoga, if you go to India to practice yoga, you're going to sit and you're going to do breathwork first and not move through a hot yoga class, right? Interesting. When you sit down, you look at a plate with an Ayurvedic meal, you're not counting calories, you're looking at nourishment. You're looking at foods that have high vibration

that come from the earth, right? High-vibrous foods that are going to support you and fuel you with vitamins and minerals and phytochemicals and nutrients and stuff like that. So I think that the mindset and the belief system and, you know, yourself talk and dialogue has to come up first. Do you think that people, when they're trying to get well, how deeply do they need to see how staying sick is serving them because I feel a little bit like I just know in working with my own patients that sometimes we get to this place where we have to look our symptoms in the eye and say, you know what? I'm actually getting attention. I'm getting out of things I don't want to do. My identity's wrapped up in my condition right now. And so I can look at meditation.

I can look at a nourishing meal. I can fast. I can do all those things. But in order to do that and heal from those, I'm going to have to give up these things that are really familiar to me. Oh, yeah. Living with victim mindset, I was great at that. It was so much easier. There's so many things that I didn't have to do.

If I didn't feel like working out, oh, it's okay. I've got this hard thing. I can't do it today. I don't want to cook. I don't want to go to that event, whatever it is. And it's more comfortable. And I think that, you know, we think that getting healthy. and fasting, living a healthier life, exercising, meditating.

It seems like a lot of work. When instead, we simply haven't acknowledged the benefit or the feeling that they give us. So, for example, if I tell somebody to go to yoga, don't just go to one yoga class this week. Go to three because I promise you at the end of the third session, you will fall in tune with the feeling that it gives you. That feeling is what's going to make you want to go back. I think that whole, you know, create a new habit in 20, one days or whatever it is, it's bullshit. Like it really is.

No, you have to notice the feeling of what doing these positive actions for your mind and body will give you. Does it take a certain level of undoing and then breaking up with a version of yourself that you don't want to be? Right. Of course. So I offer my clients a guiding like question. And I say, before you do anything, ask yourself, is eating this, having this conversation,

watching this TV show, going to this place, is it going to nourish me? and the version of myself that I want to become, or is it going to deplete me and keep me where I am? And if you kind of learn to live your life by constantly moving yourself to the number one position on your priority list with most of us don't live there, right? Then healthy living and all these rituals that you and I are speaking of become so much easier. Yeah. Yeah. But what if I say, what if I ask myself that question? I'm like, hmm, this chocolate chip cookie. Cheesecake. There we go. because I can make a really good keto cheesecake. If this keto cheesecake is going to nourish me or regular cheesecake,

I'm going to feel amazing after it. What if that's my answer? But then tomorrow I'm like, oh, wait, I shouldn't have had the cheesecake. But I felt great yesterday afternoon. Well, I'm pretty sure you're the same as me. There are so many healthier options out there. If the cheesecake or the cookie or the ice cream is calling you, then yeah, 100%.

Go forward if it's going to make you feel good. But here's the difference. If you get your body into a state where it is thriving or at least healing, your body can metabolize those foods without the list of side effects that come with it, including the anxiety or the guilt after. Yes. Right. Amen.

Amen. But if we are consuming those foods from a state of inflammation and chronic anxiety and stress and we're using them as a crutch to feel better, then of course, that is not going to nourish you at all. Yeah. Yeah. How much do you think if you're actually eating a food and you're in a negative state, like you're either stressed or you're like, I'm going to eat this, but I'm really feeling very guilty about eating this? How much of that do you think affects how that food plays out in our body and affects our digestion?

I think your digestion will completely shut down and you will feel bad from it. Yeah. It's a whole thing, right? Like we're living in an era where most of us go about day-to-day life living in fight or flight. which is stress the equivalent that you and I'm sure always give running from a lion. You would never throw a sandwich or an apple into your mouth as you're running from a lion, right? Your body is trying to survive. And this is the magic of Ashram living. When you're eating, there's no distractions. You're sitting in a peaceful environment. There's no screens. You're sitting

with people. You're having conversation. The sounds are pleasing in the background. The view is also really nice. So you're actually setting it the stage for your body to be able to metabolize food. digestion takes up a tremendous amount of energy. And food is information, right? It's either going to fuel health or fuel imbalance in disease. So I think that if you can set the stage first, and maybe it's, hey, you know what, this is a cookie. It's probably not the best thing for me.

But I'm really going to love the crap out of eating this cookie. And then after or tomorrow morning, I'm back to all my rituals that are going to help me thrive. Yeah. Yeah, we call that in the fasting world, we call that fat adapted. I always use my hands where I always use. I'm like, we have two systems that we are going to burn energy from. One is sugar and one is fat. And you're meant to metabolically switch in and out of both of those.

And once you get fat adapted where you can go without food and you can click back and when you do eat food, your blood sugar goes up and then it comes down very efficiently, you are, you can literally have your cake and eat it too. That's the way I look at it. And it's, to me, the lifestyles that we're talking about is not deprivation. It's actually a gift to the body. But you can't, I don't think you can go from chronically ill to that place where, okay, I can have cake every once in a while. I feel like we've got sometimes when you're in the darkest place, you've got to really put some structure into place to be able to get you to this what I call fat adapted or what you call.

Absolutely. I think you called it enjoying, enjoying life. So do you think there is a progression of healing that happens for people, depending how far down a dark hole you are? Absolutely. You know, I would say that within the first two weeks, people often feel better by simply taking out the bad. Just take out the bad, the inflammatory vegetable and seed oils that they're consuming, the sugars,

the processed food. If you don't know what an ingredient is on the label that you're eating, neither does your body. Just focus on taking out the bad. What do you think is the worst? Sorry, I just had to. Yeah. Oh, gosh, the food industry is getting so tricky with these seed oils. So tricky. Honestly, like this oat milk thing is driving me nuts and they put rapeseed in when rapes is just another word for canola oil. It's like, gosh, they're trying to trick you. Yeah. But I get it. You know, they're making money. I don't get it. You're a little more compassionate that I am. I actually don't get it. And I'm frustrated because even it says somebody who knows food as well as I do. So we have to really be conscientious about reading an ingredient label, looking at what all the

different pieces are. It's really frustrating to a point that I actually don't, I try to get things without a label. Oh, my gosh, yeah. And I would say this is probably one of the biggest hurdles that I work with my clients on when you go into the grocery store learning how to read the labels and what the ingredients are and getting yourself to a point where you, you know, have the confidence to say, I don't know what that is. I'm going to put that down because I know that's not going to serve me at all.

And I think, you know, Dr. Hyman talks about this a lot, but the more that we can control what we're purchasing with our dollar, what we're spending, the more the food industry is going to have to respond. And yeah, you're just, you know, you're speaking my language. My future will definitely be around the food system, how we're feeding our youth these days, the food that we, the fact that, gosh, I live in California, and the majority of people here don't know how to grow their food. We'd be growing food everywhere to feed so many people and we're not doing it, right? But yeah, the general rule of thumb and the ashram way is to eat more foods with no ingredient label. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. How long did how, I'm also curious how long

you ate a meal? How long did a meal last in the ashram? So we would typically have brunch, would break our fast at around 10 o'clock in the morning and this idea of eat the rainbow. So we'd see just tons of colors and, you know, I come from just different plant foods on our diet. with a focus on good quality fats and animal protein as well, or sorry, animal, sorry, good quality proteins is what I'm trying to say. Yeah. And we would probably sit and eat a meal for about 30 minutes or so. Like it wasn't a five minute meal as we typically do, but we're sitting and engaging and we're kind of taught to take in a sense of

gratitude for our food, how it was grown, how it got to our table, the amount of hands and people and effort that had to go into picking it from the ground until it's sitting there in front of you in this beautiful dish and the flavors that you're consuming. And the beautiful thing with Ayurvedic meals is we honor all of the taste buds as well. So sweet, salty, bitter, astringent, and sour. So we try to incorporate all those flavors in our food and our recipes. And when we honor that, we notice that there's fewer food cravings that happen throughout the day. So for example, to add some sweetness like maybe a few raisins or a date into one of the veggie meals is going to appease the, you know, I'm a, I've got a sugar

tooth, the cravings for those foods afterwards. Yeah. And then throughout the day, we've got rest. And then we're eating dinner probably around six o'clock from six till seven. We'll just sit and just relax and eat food and clean up as a community. But those are the two meals of the day. So it's two meals. And then how long did you fast?

So we're fasting, I guess, from seven until 11 o'clock in the morning. Yeah. That's like the best, I mean, based off the research, that's like the best scenario. Yeah. For digestion, for metabolic markers, that's like a 7 to 11 would be a phenomenal amount to fast. And clinically, that's what we see as well. And I would say, honestly, the first three days for people, it's probably the biggest adjustment because we're just, we're used to eating whenever we want, this instant gratification,

instead of really cueing into our intuition and our hunger hormone and when we actually feel like we need to be eating. And then it's easy. Have you heard that it takes 20 minutes from the time you eat for the hunger hormone to get turned off? Is that still accurate? That was like something my mom had taught me years ago. They still teach that at the ashram.

I think there's validity. And even if there isn't, honestly, I think that we all just need to be eating slower, right? Yeah, right. You know, the idea of chewing our food. If chewing our food is the first stage of digestion, combining it with saliva and chewing, right? Most of us aren't doing that. And yet, if I were to speak at a conference or a workshop, if I ask people how many

are experiencing digestive issues, anywhere from bloating, constipation or gas, diarrhea, whatever it is, every hand will go up. And so something that we don't talk about, the doctor will never say, well, take some more time chewing your food. Right. And let's see if that supports you with your digestion, you're bloating, right? Right. Which is the, that is like where I go, but they'll happily give us a pill.

Yeah. Take this. But they won't tell us just to slow down eating, which is so much easier than taking the pill. I'm putting your devices away, right? We're so addicted to doing something while we're eating, eating on the run, on the go, while we're working or scrolling, right, for entertainment. But we're not present to the act of eating in nourishment. And this is a ritual that we've really gotten away from.

If we look back at our ancestors, they would eat in communities. Like there would be villages preparing foods and would sit together, right? I love it. And when we acknowledge like digestion is everything, eating food provides us our livelihood. It's our energy throughout the day. But we're so disconnected from the fact that food equals nourishment, food equals energy. We just throw things down the hatch and expect our body to deal with it. So I think there's more awareness around just stopping for a second, allowing your brain to queue into the fact that you're going to take in nutrition, allowing your body a minute to turn on the hormone.

that it needs to cue, right, the digestive process. And all of a sudden, we're queuing the rest and digest state for eating where we can metabolize our foods the best. I love that. Where does community, you've said it a couple of times. And community is another thing that I've been thinking a lot about. When we look at hormones, one of the things that I teach, my followers is that there's a hierarchy to hormones.

So how much do you think that that plays a part in when you look at, the environment of an ashram. Like it's not just, oh, I'm going to go to an ashram and heal, but you can take pieces of that and do it in your own life. So talk a little bit about the power of community and healing. Look, I think our bodies are magnificent and magical, right? Something as simple is, I didn't grow up in a house like this, but putting out your dinnerware, setting the table, right?

As you set the table, smelling the foods that are cooking, you're queuing the body to take in nutrition and digest food. Like you said, you're producing the hormones that you need to optimize digestion. And so, yeah, going to the ashram, this is a really big piece. We really understand in Ierveda. The power of digestion is number one. If you were not digesting your food, you are going to end up suffering with imbalances. You're going to end up accumulating over time.

And accumulation is what fuels inflammation, right? Right. So, yeah, I think it's a necessity. So ultimately, what I do. teach my clients is how to create the ashram, how to bring the ashram to the city. Love that. Really, you know, everything that I was doing at the ashram, I'm totally capable of doing in my own home with the exception of the, you know, the random people that were there.

But I can put on pleasing music. I can certainly cook and use spices, healing spices in my foods and be very aware of where my food comes from, make the right choices. I can set the stage in my home. I'll always say to people, like if you're looking around your house and you're seeing things that cause you stress, right, or like a stack of piles or like the messy corner of the drawer that cause you anxiety, clear it up, set the stage for that, right? Yep. And then all of a sudden we're setting the stage for you to be able to replicate the same healing process that you would

achieve when visiting these ashtraums, right? It doesn't feel the same at all, but you can play the same music, right? So if you set the stage within your home and kind of maybe get rid of the the things that you're doing, the habits that you've built up over the past few years that you know aren't serving you, it does take time to ditch them. But again, I think if you're making it a priority and over time when you understand the feeling, the difference, right? How good does it feel to go out with a friend to dinner where you just sit and you're talking? The food takes its time coming. Just really slow down and tune in and enjoy all the flavors of your food. You feel great. Yeah. Yeah. We were in Italy. My husband and I about five years ago. And the one thing we noticed,

is the families that were with little kids that were sitting there for hours having food and wine together. And it was we just, we love family. We love food. We love wine. So we were like, this is like, look at that in action and how the heck do they have that seven year old, that five year old sitting at that table so long. And I think that we just haven't been taught how to do that in our culture. And the TV, you've brought. brought up screens a couple of times. One thing I would say, I've been so proud of in our family, our kids are grown up now, but you were never allowed to bring a phone to the table, ever. Because, no, it was sit down and talk. And even to this day, my kids can do that pretty nicely

at the table. Like, we have somebody come over. My kids will sit for hours and talk with them. But I think that's a trained behavior that has been really lost and would help so many American families. We have a worldwide audience, but I think that American families need to bring that back. Well, look at my past, right? Everything that my parents were doing consciously or not, they were imprinting. All of these rituals are part of me since I was a kid, right? And I went back to them because I remember them. Yeah.

And today, yeah, it's a non-negotiable in our house. My kids are little. I've got a three-year-old and a seven-year-old. No screens at the table. They'll get screens once in a while, right? But we set a timer and then they are off and they know that it goes away. and we make the biggest effort to just have a family dinner every single night. I'll turn music on.

I usually am the one that will do the cooking and I'll make sure their little kids, even though they're things that they might not be eating right now. They see it on their plate. They see the veggies on the dinner. We talk about eating the rainbow. We talk about where the food comes from. We also have a really great ritual where we talk about our rose and our thorn for the day so that we're communicating together.

You know, I think our children also need to be. taught to get themselves into a restful state when they eat and to kind of disengage from the activity and the chatter from the screens, right? It affects their physiological state. What's what music do you listen to? Do you have a dinner music? You can say, because I'll bet up and tell you mine and it's not going to be what you think. So we'll have Siri to play Christmas carols. Oh gosh, all year round? Oh my gosh. That's a big one. Jessica, who runs our podcast, and you freaking loves Christmas. You listen to it all year round?

Sometimes we do, or we'll listen to, like, you know, Harry Connich Jr. Or classical music. My kids are really into the budgets that I place from the ashram. So they'll listen to that classical Indian music once in a while, too. But if we just need like an easy go-to, it's Christmas carols because we make us feel good, right? They're happy. That's like good. So put on happy music.

So we play, one of my favorite things to play is Krishna Das. Yes. And I just love the chat. I love it. And so we'll play that, you know, as we're making a meal. We'll sit down and have it with a meal. And I used to actually play it sometimes when my kids were little before they would go to bed. And so when my kids would go to other people's houses, they would say, can you put Krishna Das on for me? And I would get like text from the moms. They would be like, what is your child listening to? And it was so fun to just experience, you know, a different version. of music for dinner. Yeah, Christian Doss is a big one. My husband will often play the Hamilton soundtrack. Oh, there we go. There we go. Yeah, but I actually play those, that Kirton style of music for my kids before they go to bed. Yeah, it's rhythmic and it. Yeah, put you to sleep. So do you think, what do you think is more important? I know this is a hard one to answer, but the environment in which you are eating food and you're surrounding yourself, is that more important or the quality of the food that you're eating?

The quality of the food for sure. Yeah, I think because we're living in a society where we're bombarded with pollution and low nutrient food and water that might not be optimal and too much stress, I think that we need to look at our nourishment as a primary thing. So, you know, really consider that your healthcare is your kitchen. Healthcare starts in your kitchen, right? Yeah. Yeah. Your herbs are your pharmacy, right? So if I could come over to your house and go through your fridge and go through your cabinets, what would I see? Would I see things that when you say to me, I want to feel great every day. I want my energy to be a 10 out of 10. I want to lose 10 pounds. Does the food in your cabinets reflect that, right? Or not. And it's really taking the personal

power back. Health care starts in your kitchen. Yeah. The only thing I would say to that is that people will pull up a diet drink and say, well, I want to lose 10, 10 pounds. Here's my diet, my diet soda and my, you know, low, low calorie bars. You know, I, I had somebody the other day show me a bar that he was eating and I'm like, and he thought it was like a health bar. I'm like, oh, my God, read those ingredients to me. That is a horrific bar. So again, we're back at the messaging we're getting around food is often.

you have it says on the label it's low calorie it says it's natural but it's not no labels are tricky right something labeled as healthy um and it could check all the boxes gluten free low sugar and all these things but again just go back to understanding if you do not understand what the ingredient is exactly yep you can't read it if you can't read it your body will not know what it is and um you know really spending your time shopping at the parameters of the surf right on the outer aisles skip the inner aisles completely because in Irobedo we say anything that comes from a box is dead food yeah yeah right there's i was yeah it's so i was just uh interviewed on the doctors for about self-care for for moms and what they wanted me to come up with a list and so i one of the things

they loved that i said was shop the perimeters stay out of the middle aisles and i'm thinking in my head isn't that obvious like don't we doesn't everybody but they were like oh that's such a good tip. I'm like, really? I feel like that's something that has been slowly becoming like, oh, this is a good idea to do to it's mandatory that you stay out of the middle aisles unless you're like at whole foods or something. And even whole foods. You got to stay out. Even whole foods now. Right. I know. And this is such a tricky one, especially for moms because we need things that are fast and easy. Most of us are working. And the food industry is doing an incredible job at marketing to our kids. So when I walk into random grocery stores and

walk down that aisle with the crackers and the cookies and the goldfish crackers. And I just cringe. My blood pressure goes up. And I just like, I wish that, you know, families could take ownership and understanding that this is really just about money, right? Big food companies making money. There's no nourishment for our kids. And if we know that all of these symptoms and diseases are rising within our children,

mental health disorders even, the culprit is what they're consuming. Right. have to change around what they're consuming. Is it hard? Do my kids detox after going to a party and like, mom, I want the goldfish. I want the cake. You know,

this person gets it. But I really help them understand, well, tell me what's going to give you more nutrition? What's going to fuel your energy a little bit more? Yeah. Something that comes from the ground from Mother Nature or something from this box. Tell me,

can you read these ingredients? Yeah. It's just really not labeling them as good or bad because, gosh, I know that when I was old enough, I went out and I binged, but really understand. the impact on the food on their energy, on their mood, on their behavior, on their sleep,

then there's a bit of a shift. And it doesn't happen overnight. It happens over time. But I'm convinced in the same way that my parents did with me, they're things that will stick with them. They're learning. Yeah. Agreed. I also discovered this with my kids is once you train their taste buds to like good quality food, they don't love it when they get bad food. With both my kids, when they went off to college, they both came running home and they were like, oh my God, the food was so horrible. And I actually, then I started teaching them intermittent fasting at that point because I was like, okay, you're going to need to, this is all you have access to. You're going to need to skip a meal and get some metabolic reprieve in that intermittent fasting window and

then maybe only condense it down. But it was a really fun reflection back where they were like, they were like, I hate that food. I'm like, great. We did a good job training your taste buds. So I was really pleased. Yeah, exactly. You were listening. Do you think that there is a one-size-fits-all approach to food? And where do you think vegan and carnivore? Those are hotly debated in my community. And I'm curious, like, is everybody have to find their own path? Or is there an absolute great path for people?

I think there's an idea of a great blueprint, but I think that your perfect diet should be as unique as your thumbprint. When my clients can take ownership and say, you know, Moma, I've been going vegan this month and it's feeling really good. My digestion feels improved. I feel like I have more energy. I'm like, great. But let's not get attached to it. This might be great for the season that you're in right now.

Maybe you're going to start craving some animal protein and that's okay. Don't worry about the defining label. Because the fact of the matter, and I'm sure you talk about this all the time, we can find the studies that reflect keto and paleo and veganism, vegetarianism. They all have great. You can find the great things about all of them, right? But I think it really has to do a lot with you. I know for a lot of the people that I work with, when we look at your ethnicity and where you come from, understanding what foods are going to make you feel good, have to do

with your ethnicity, ethnicity. But yeah, not committing to one or the other. Talk a little bit about that. That's actually come up in a couple of my podcast interviews. A guy you need to know is Dr. Bill Schindler. He wrote a book called Eat Like a Human. and he's a lovely man. He's so, oh my gosh, he's so heart-based. And it came up in that discussion. And it kind of is, I hear some sprinklings of go back and look at what your heritage is and eat like

that. Okay, well, I'm German. So does that mean I should go, well, I do like sauerkraut and I do like sausages, actually. Come to think of it. Yeah, there you go. But is that, is it that simple? You go back and look at where your upbringing was? Can we use that as a threat of health? I think it depends, but I think it's definitely worth a try. So look at me. So I've got my father who's East Indian, who grew up completely vegetarian, Ayurvedic foods and everything. My mom, who's Danish, who grew up on meat and potatoes, right? Right. If I am to go to the meat and potatoes route, my biology just doesn't feel as good. If I go to the Ayurvedic route, I thrive. I just feel better. It feels better for my constitution. My brother, on the other hand, when he goes the Danish route,

the made in potatoes and more of a paleo-style meal without potatoes, he thrives. That's just better for him. But then I look at my biology. So as much as I am about using these ancient rituals, I also am really honoring the fact that we have this incredible science to help us understand what we need in the moment. I just have these weird genetic things like Thalasenium Minor. So sometimes if I'm prone to also getting a little bit of mnemic, then I understand, you know what, maybe now is a good time to incorporate some animal protein. And I'll cycle it in. So you're flexible. I'm flexible. Flexitarian. That's what it's like that. Lexitarian. So we have a Facebook group that fast together. And there's, we have about 50,000 people on

there. And we do different fasts every month. And I swear the carnivores and the vegans, like, they go at each other. And it's just crazy. And they're, you know, the carnivores will tell the vegans that are off and the vegans will tell the carnivores that they're stupid. And I'm like, this is ridiculous. Everybody has aversion. So one thing that I started to incorporate into my work with my patients was you could have vegan days and you could have carnivore days. So you can be both if you choose to be both. Absolutely. And you know, I have a lot of people who say, well, I can't really cook animal protein. So when they go out to dinner, they'll take advantage of being at a nice restaurant with a really great quality meat and they'll get it in there, right? But, you know,

Yeah, I think that the level of stress and anxiety that's coming up as a result of all these diet bashing. Yeah. It's just, it's even more toxic, right? I talked to talk to somebody just before this podcast about he'd watch the game changers, right? Right. Oh, yeah, I have to work. I have to unwind the thinking of the game changer people. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. And so now he's on that round and it's like, well, I think I feel better. It's like, okay, well, let's just not, you know, label yourself right now. Try it on and see how it fits, see how it feels throughout this month. Monitor your symptoms. Let's feel into it and it might change. Just avoid committing. And all of a sudden, it's like, ooh, that gives me such a great sense of freedom. What about seasonal eating? Do you think that there's, that's kind of a topic that isn't

discussed enough. Do you think that we should be eating different things in the winter than the summer? I do. I just think that this is, this is something that's becoming harder for us to do because we live, especially in California. My gosh, we can get anything we want year around, right? Don't tell everybody that. I might have to edit that part out. Well, I'm from Toronto, so I know in Canada. It's a very different scenario. But yeah, I really do feel the benefit. So if we look at the Ayurvedic model of healing, they will eat seasonally. And I think there is benefit because when we look at things like watermelon and cucumber that are loaded with more hydration to cool our bodies down in the summertime, that just makes sense. And then we go to the root vegetables that come from the earth

that help us ground in the wintertime that are a little bit more heavy and satiating in the wintertime. It just makes sense. Right. So yeah, I think it's the lit, it's definitely valid. But I also think from a nutrient standpoint, right, we have to acknowledge where our food comes from. How many hours did it spend in transit growing from the other side of the world, right, until it got to the supermarket where it's probably been sitting for a couple of weeks before you actually open it up and eat it. So I think that if you're able to eat seasonal and local whenever possible, you're definitely going to get a higher nutrient intake. Yeah, for sure. I also think that we as humans are, we're like a puzzle piece that fits with nature. And when we are working against that, like,

this is why I'm such a fan of the local movement, because you should be fitting, eating food from your local places because it came from local soils. And it's going to go more with the, with the constitution of who you are in that environment. And so when I look at, like the fruits that are available in the summertime, okay, that makes sense that we would have our body's more prone to have fruit. But then in the wintertime, you know, fruit may not, in California, we get citrus easily, but you maybe bananas wouldn't grow on a tree in California or anywhere in the wintertime. So are we supposed to be eating that in the wintertime? And when you get in touch with what the rhythms of nature, that's a whole other level that you can take eating to.

and it's kind of fun. And in the fasting world, we actually believe more in longer fast in the winter because you've gone in, like that's what the cave people did. They had to go without food in the winter. So our bodies are actually programmed to go into these longer fast in the winter.

Absolutely. Whereas the cave people in the summer had plants and everything accessible, so they were meant to eat more. Yeah, they were foraging, they were moving. There was more access, 100%. But I love that you brought that out,

because I speak about that a lot. this connection to nature, right? I'm sure everyone listening can resonate with a time in their life where they just, they wanted to escape, right? They wanted to travel or get away or maybe that you pray love moment, right? People often go to the ashram also to escape. I bet. Yeah. And it's really this disconnection from nature that I think causes a lot of illness. Yeah. And when you're disconnected from nature, we're also disconnected from our own nature. I don't know who I am anymore. I don't know what to do. I have a hard time making decision. I don't know what my future will. hold. It's like, no, you do. You just got, you know, you're, you're, um, you're disengaged from

listening, right? Our body is constantly sending us cues to listen, to tune in. And yet we ignore them, right? We get used to living with the physical symptoms, but we also get used to living with, um, and living out of alignment with our intuition, right? Yeah. Yeah. So true. What do we all do? We go into nature. We stop. We take a deep breath. Ah, ah, this feels so good. Right. My husband and I will often just do weekend trips up into the woods. I want to get my hands into the dirt. I want my kids to get their hands dirty. Like I really want them to breathe in that biome.

And all we just noticed like, oh, I still have the same stressors. Still the same schedule. Nothing else has changed with the fact that except we're in nature and I feel a lot better. Right. So whenever you can just make that connection to nature, a big priority. Yeah. You know, getting onto the sun. first thing in the morning, right? Right. Like reconnecting ourselves to the planet. I, we were just in Hawaii last week and my husband and I, and we were, I told my husband,

I'm like, we have to get in the ocean every single day. I'm like, we don't get in the ocean every day. So let's get our bodies in there for the biome, for the minerals. I did. And then one day, I came out and I did some research on like the mineral content of seawater. And I'm like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. Like, they have some pretty profound minerals. So it was really, fun to look at getting in the ocean as a health habit that we don't necessarily access on our day-to-day basis. So at the ashram, we always laughed because the swamis would come out in their orange suits every single day in the morning.

They would go straight into the ocean before they started their day. And this ritual was really around, you know, undoing what your body was processing overnight. Your body was repairing and regenerating. Your mind was dreaming and processing there. And so going into the ocean was an act of releasing what no longer serves. you and starting your day in that note. And they'll also have a shower at the end of the day. This is also a great practice for grounding at the end of the day. Just visualize the water that's running from your shower. Just imagine it was a waterfall. Imagine it was the ocean. Imagine it was a lake.

We can all just tune into that, visualizing the stress, moving from your mind down to your feet into the drain away from you. And then using grounding oils after to just get out of your, out of your mind and into your body, mimicking or visualizing the power of nature. Yeah. Yeah. crazy. Okay, before we close, you got to tell me about hickama. So the hickama, the vegetable, is it considered a vegetable? Or is it considered a root vegetable, yeah. A root vegetable, which is great for progesterone, by the way, all root vegetable. You probably already know this. But it is one of those that I've struggled to figure out, do I like it? Do I not like it? Then I put it in some dip. And I'm like, yeah, I like it. And then I'm like, no, I don't know if I like it. And it's very conflicting for me. but you've actually got a whole company around the juice.

So explain to me the power of hickama juice. Yeah. So hickam is a root vegetable. It's kind of like a cross between a potato and an apple. And I've been using it on my client's meal plants for over a decade because it's an easy swap for things like crackers and cookies and processed food. Incorporated with a good quality fat like an avocado or some hummus. And great.

You know, it's high in vitamin C, high in prebiotic fiber. This gut microbiome talk is so trending these days. but we know the power of prebiotics to fuel the good bacteria in your gut. So I thought, great. We were on our baby moon a couple years ago in Hawaii, eating some- your baby moon. Yeah, I had to take a moment to think about what a baby moon was. We didn't have baby moons when I have my kids.

I want to re-go. Oh, I know. I took full advantage of them. Yeah, my husband just said, you know, this sort of tastes really great as a juice. And so came back home through Hickama through a juicer. And the juice from a hickama, because there's so much high-based. in it, tasted really good. It was a little bit sweet, kind of like a watermelon water. So we instantly went online, went to see, is anyone doing anything with hickama juice or hickma water?

Nobody was. But we saw tons of stories specifically from Latino community saying, my mother used to give this to me for an upset tummy. Or my mom used to use the juice on her skin because it's high in vitamin C. And just that, wow, there's something to this. I love that nostalgia around it. And so we started working with mixologists who ended up making a three amazing flavors and one of them ended up being, we turned it into a sparkling water. So three flavors of a sparkling water using hickama juice as the base. And we ended up being the number one selling beverage at Coachella, the last Coachella, after beer and water. After beer and water.

Yeah. After beer and water. True. I didn't think of that. But okay. Yeah. But, you know, for somebody who had no, you know, idea that they would end up creating a beverage, this is something that was really And today we just launched in all Airwine stores. Dr. Hyman has been a great supporter and posted some recipes that he really loves. So yeah, that's an exciting time. Really the vision behind it, though, is, you know, giving people a better alternative for those people who are addicted to sodas and colas and all that stuff out there, here's a sparkling water. And I often think that people think when you go healthy, you have to sacrifice taste when that's not the case at all.

So, you know, go try, Hickama. You can check us out online. But the big picture also, like, when you juice, a hickama, you get a ton of fiber pulp, right? So I've turned that into Hicama flower and we've got lots of exciting things coming for the company. So can you, can you order online? You can order online at hikamelife.com. Okay. So we'll put the, we'll put the link in the show notes because you actually have me really intrigued. So I'm going to go order a bunch of stuff and try it all out. So because again, I told you it's a really conflicting vegetable for me. But the fact that it's a root vegetable is even more exciting because that is something that women over 40 really need to be able to support progesterone. Absolutely. Yeah, I love it. I love it. Yeah. And the other thing is I'm going

back to the ashram. So end of March. Okay. So you take like people on tours. So believe it or not, this is just me coming full circle to where I came from. So the ashram reached out to me and they asked me to lead a retreat. Then they realized my story. They thought, oh my gosh, come and tell your story. So I'm teaching that philosophy of how to build your ashram there, but also how to take that home with you. So people can join in person or online on Paradise Island. I highly recommend coming in person. Amazing. Okay. Well, we'll leave the link down there as well. And it's so nice to hear people having retreats again. Yeah, right. It's like, oh, that felt normal to hear you say that. Thank you. I just came out to have people. I know. Agreed. Agreed. You know, for somebody whose love language is touch,

this whole pandemic thing has been a struggle. Like I just want to hug everybody. So I agree. So last couple of questions for you. Every year on my podcast, we have a different theme. And this year the theme is gratitude. So two questions on gratitude for you. One, do you have a daily gratitude practice that's very intentional?

And two, what's something you're incredibly grateful for in this moment in this day and age? I love sharing my morning gratitude. So before I open my eyes while I'm laying in bed, I take my hands over my heart and I express gratitude for my body. The fact that my heart has healed. The fact that when doctors told me I was paramedopausal in my 20s, I changed that around. When doctors told me that I couldn't have kids, I did. And really just the superpower of our inherent ability to heal. And the belief that I have in myself, it's like I just need the daily reminder of the fact that my gosh, my heart is beating for me every second of the day.

and we kind of really get disconnected from that, right? Yeah, absolutely. Just acknowledge your body before you get out of bed. The one vessel that you get in this life that's taking you through the highs and the lows, right? Yeah, so true. Yeah. And I would say, you know, in this moment, a sense of gratitude for the feeling of awakening that's happening right now. I feel like a lot of the people that I'm speaking with are feeling a sense of expansion again.

Yes. And this expansion now is disconnection from what's being public. publicized in media and social media. And instead, a sense of tuning and, well, no, what's going to make me feel happy in this life? How can I feel good? What are the rituals that I want to adopt? What's going to make me feel good in my career?

And really just honoring those conversations and something that our listeners can perhaps engage in, when you ask somebody how they're doing and they respond with, oh, you know, I'm fine. I'm so busy. It's like, yeah, I know you're fine. You're busy. But just tell me, how are you feeling? Connect with me. Like let's really honor that personal connection with each other.

Because we all just want to get it out of our mind into the ether. And often we're all struggling with the same things. And I think men and women alike, we need more dialogue of not necessarily this word venting or bitching, but simply communicating the sense of feeling and things that we're working on. It feels wrong. I love that. So I did some, I just turned in my fourth book to Hay House a couple weeks ago. yeah, I have a fasting. It's called Fast Like a Girl. It's a fasting manual for women that will come out at the end of this year. And one of the things I did in the afterward was really do some research on what happened at the 1918 pandemic. And one of the things that happened from that is that they're out of that dark moment came four major themes. And one of them was really, I mean, there was one whole theme around women, which is really interesting. But there's also a theme around community and connection.

And really like the speakies, if you go in and you look at what the speakiesies were, they were people gathering, you know, secretly with each other and celebrating. And when you say that there's a paradigm breaking apart, that's how I feel. That's what I see is like the pandemic was a paradigm breaker. You can call it whatever you want to call it, but it shattered every paradigm. And we now get to create what paradigm we're going to step into. you just like went right into my heart on that one, Mona. Like this is why I want to have these conversations because we have an opportunity to

not do life the way that we used to do it because that way was not serving us physically, mentally or spiritually. We can recreate it, but we can't fall asleep again. So yeah. Goose bumps. Yeah. Yeah. I just love that.

I love that. Oh, that's so beautiful. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you for having me. And how do people find you if they want to dive into your Hickama juice or find you on a retreat? Find your Instagram.

I'm really loving the sense of community that we can kind of build. I feel like I've made all these friendships through Instagram, not having that. Me too. Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah. Yeah. So find me on Instagram. Drop me a note.

You'll see all the links to Hickama there as well. I've got my website as well, which is just monosharama.com. But yeah, come say hello. And yeah, I think that community now more than ever is just so important. So I'm excited to just build that. this year. Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it, so please leave us a review, share it with your friends, and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.